Hope Not Fear (1 Peter 1:3)

Peter wrote to churches that were enduring the scourge of persecution. He wasted no time in pointing them back to what was important; the hope that Christ-followers have in the finished work of Jesus Christ, especially His resurrection. Peter wanted the Church to understand that it makes no difference what trials, tribulations, persecutions, or hardships are happening to believers on this earth because they have an eternal hope that can never be taken away. 

Why can it never be taken away?  

Because it is secured by the finished work of Jesus alone, and He will see it through to its completion. From the first words of his letters to the Church, Peter was reminding them that their faith was worth it, that following Jesus was worth it because of the great hope of salvation they had been given. He was preparing them to persevere in obedience until God's work for their lives was finished. He was refocusing them on the only thing that matters; Jesus.

Transcript

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Welcome to drippings from the honeycomb, the official podcast of Another 12 ministries. We are so glad that you have decided to join us as we enjoy the sweetness of God's word, one verse at a time. Hello, and welcome to episode two of our journey through the letters from Peter to the church. In our first episode, we took a detailed look at who Peter was the man that he was the disciple that he was the apostle that he ultimately became, and how his leadership was foundational for the creation of the church, and how he led the church in its beginning. In this episode, we're going to shift our focus into the actual letters from Peter. And we're going to start in first Peter one, verse three, and that reads, bless it be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to His great mercy He has caused us to be born again, to a living hope, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Now whenever we examine a passage from the scriptures, it's important that we take a look at the context in which this verse was originally written. This verse is being written by Peter or dictated by Peter to a scribe, and being written down for the benefit of churches that are undergoing heavy persecution. These churches are suffering for their faith, and Christianity is relatively new, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ had happened not that many years before this is written. And so this fledgling religion or fledgling practice of worshipping God, a departure from the Old Testament prescribed laws of worship and of ceremonial living, is under attack, both from those who are faithful to Judaism, and those who hate Christianity. In essence, the church is under attack with persecution from every side. And that's exactly how Satan wants it. He wants to discourage these Christians, he wants to get them to abandon their faith, he wants to do whatever he can to stamp out the gospel going forward, he does not want the church to grow, because the more the church grows, and the deeper the faith of these new believers becomes, the more entrenched Christianity will become in the world. And the greater the light of Jesus will prevail against Satan's lordship over this world. And so Peter, in his letter starts out by encouraging the believers, he starts out by telling them that they have a hope. And what is that hope? It is the hope that is found in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead sea, he doesn't tell them, you have hope in the cross, or you have hope in the community of the church, or you have just hope in God, just a blanket statement of saying you have hope in God, which wouldn't be inaccurate. There is hope to be found in God in faith in God. But he goes specific. He says, You have a hope, in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Now, why would this be important? Why would a church that is under heavy persecution, need to have this kind of hope put back in the forefront of their minds by an apostolic letter? Well, the reason is pretty simple. When you think about persecution, especially in the modern Western world, you think about maybe being called names or experiencing hurtful rejection from someone that maybe you thought was your friend, or maybe even being physically bullied for having faith in Jesus Christ and being willing to step out of your comfort zone and share the gospel with someone. Many people in the Western Church have never encountered serious physical persecution, such as being beaten or even executed for their faith. But the churches that Peter is writing to are under fire, they are being killed for their belief in Jesus Christ, they are being executed, both by people who hate the church and by a government that hates the church. And so they are dying for their faith. They are seeing lives extinguished, families torn apart, fathers arrested mothers executed children killed for their faith. To further understand this, we need only turn over to First Thessalonians four where it says, Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who fall asleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, you have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again. And so we believe that God will bring with Jesus, those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord's word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a loud command with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet. Call All of God and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that we who are still alive and our left will be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words. You see, Peter was writing to the church about the hope that we have in the resurrection of Jesus, because He wanted them to look past the pain and the suffering of this world. He wanted them to look at their future, he wanted them to understand that this life is going to be difficult that this life is going to have trials that in this life, you may be imprisoned or you may even be killed for your faith. If you are a parent, you may lose your child to persecution. If you're a child, your parents may be murdered for their faith in Jesus Christ. But this life isn't the last place that we will be. This life is only the beginning of life for those who are in Jesus Christ, and there will be a great reunion. When Jesus returns and brings judgment and justice to the world. When God the Father sees the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the sacrifice that he has paid for those who are found in Him, for those who have cried out to Jesus for salvation in this life, those people will be granted eternal life and they will be recompensed for their suffering. See, there is a hope that goes beyond time, there's a hope that goes beyond the 70 or 80 years that we have here on this earth. And Peter wants this church to know that everything that they are suffering is worth it. That even in the worst case, scenario, imprisonment, execution, there is an overwhelming hope, of eternal life found in Jesus. And it's not just that that person who was executed will have eternal life for themselves. But they will be with all believers at the end of time when Jesus comes back. And that means that if they have lost children, or a spouse, or friends or parents to persecution, they will see them again, they will be with them in glory, they will have this eternity to have that relationship that was cut short here in this life on Earth. And so they should be hopeful. But like usual, when we're talking about the perfection, and the beauty and the majesty of God's plan, it goes even deeper than this. And if we look into what Peter is communicating to the church, we can see that the core principles of what Peter is communicating apply to the church today. See, Peter was trying to focus these Christians on the fact that the center of their universe should be God. See, because God authored and accomplished salvation for them. This was all his plan. He is the one who devised it. He is the one who brought it about he is the one who accomplished it, and he is the one who will finish it ultimately. And it's through the work of Jesus Christ, that those who are followers, those who are believers, Christians have been born again and have this hope. And they have this hope, because Jesus Christ finished the redemptive work, he didn't go halfway, he didn't do a partial job, he finished the work, he went to the cross after living a perfectly obedient life. And after he had been in the grave for three days, he was raised from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit. And he is now living at the right hand of God interceding for his people who are still on Earth. And because of that hope, we have hope in a living God who is active on our behalf. And that's exactly what Peter was trying to tell this church, and his words have been preserved for us because God is telling us through his writings through the inspired writing of Peter here, that we have hope in a living Jesus. We don't believe in a dead god, we don't believe in an idol. We believe in a living God who is all powerful. And that is the center of our hope. And that is why Peter is focusing these believers who are going through these sufferings and saying, focus on God, God has to be the center of it all. If you focus on anything else, you will lose hope. But if you focus on God and and Jesus Christ, and what has been done for you, you will have hope. Now, what is this hope? What is the hope that we cling to? Because it's easy to say have hope? But if there's nothing specific to hope in, then what is it we're actually hoping for? Most of us have heard the term pie in the sky. If you're hoping without any tangible, realistic potential of a physical manifestation Have your hope than it's pie in the sky, it's worthless, it is false hope it would be the same as sitting in front of your stove and hoping that if you look at it long enough, dinner will materialize on the stove fully cooked and you can just serve yourself a plate of delicious food. This would be a false hope. Why? Because we have nothing tangible that we are hoping in. We know that dinner doesn't just cook itself, even though that would be really nice. And we would all enjoy for that to happen. It just isn't a reality in the world. But we have real hope in tangible things that we can lay hold off when it comes to being a Christian, and placing our hope in Jesus Christ. First, we have forgiveness of sins, as sinful people. Our sins constantly separate us from God. They are the thing that keep us from fellowship with God. But because of Christ's work on the cross, we have forgiveness of sins, and we can have that fellowship restored through the work of Jesus Christ. We have been adopted into God's family, we will have fellowship with Him not just as people, but as sons and daughters of God, for eternity, we will be with him in perfect harmony forever. There will never be a break in our fellowship ever again. See, when Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit, they experienced a break in perfect fellowship with God. But through the work of Jesus Christ, those of us who have put our faith and trust in Him for salvation, have a restored Fellowship, which will just continue to grow throughout the ages of eternity. It will be greater after we go to be with him than it is now. But it will never ever be broken again. We also have escape from eternal punishment. Because Jesus bore our punishment, we escaped from having to bear that punishment. Part of the gift of salvation is not that our punishment is erased. It is that Jesus paid it for us see punishment from God was still meted out for our sin. It was just meted out on Jesus not on us. He paid the price. And because He paid the price, we are now able to escape from that eternal punishment into eternal life, because he loved us enough to take our punishment for us. In addition, in the presence of God, we will be free from everything that pains us on this earth, there will be no more sorrow, no more pain, no more suffering, no more sin, no more sickness, no more death, no more poverty, no more need or want. We will live as redeemed people in a perfect kingdom in endless bliss for eternity. That does not mean that we are going to be some disembodied people, we are going to be humans living on this earth that has been recreated by God, full of beautiful nature, full of incredible cities full of nations that God says will come before Him in His holy city and will worship before him with joy for ever. One of the things I look forward to personally in the New Earth when God has come back and he has remade the earth and he has brought his children home to live with him there forever, is the joy of walking through the woods at night. On this earth. When we walk through the woods at night, there are all kinds of things that could happen. We could trip and fall and hurt ourselves. We could be attacked by a wild animal. We could be subjected to cold, bad weather, hunger, any kind of a number of things could happen to us on a walk through the woods at night. But in the New Earth where everything is restored, where God removes animosity between prey and Predator, where he removes death and injury and sickness, I will literally be able to walk through the woods at night and enjoy the beauty of God's creation. See the moon rise, gaze at the stars. Look at the sunrise in the morning. without fear, without worry, without concerned, completely free to enjoy God's creation, in perfect harmony with God. And most of all, because God loves us He will create a place for us to be with him where we will be totally fulfilled. Our hearts will be changed to be like Jesus, we will be made holy, because he is holy. We will love the things that he loves. And we will despise anything that he does not love. In other words, we will shun everything that is unrighteous everything that is unholy, and we will love only that which is good and right and holy we will be free from the burden of sin Then, and we will find total fulfillment. That is a thing that is nearly impossible to find on a fallen earth. It is possible to be fulfilled by filling ourselves with the Word of God, and meditating on the love of God, and worshiping God and having our mind centered upon God. But the fallen condition of this earth will never permit us to be fully fulfilled, the way we will be fulfilled when we are in heaven with God on the new earth. Because on this earth, we will still have trials, we will still have sin, we will still have troubles. But when we are with Jesus, all of that will be gone. And that is what Peter is trying to communicate to the church, both the church that he actually wrote these letters to and the church in the ages to come that would read his letters like we're doing right now. He's trying to say, give it all up. For the one who gave it all up for you have hope, that sufferings that you're going through right now are nothing compared to the joy that you will experience when you're with your Savior. Don't worry about being imprisoned or being mocked or being beaten or being stoned or being killed for your faith. Because you have a hope that transcends this temporary life, you have a hope that goes beyond anything you could ever imagine. And that hope is found in the resurrected Jesus Christ and the work that he has accomplished on your behalf. So go be a faithful witness. Be a faithful witness, no matter what the cost, because in the end, your hope is secured. Your hope is guaranteed, and your hope is perfect. And it's held by God through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross. I hope you enjoyed this episode of drippings from the honeycomb. 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